National Trail Daze recap

SBTS celebrated National Trail Day by hosting two separate volunteer work days; one in the Downieville area on the Tahoe National Forest, and the other in the Lakes Basin on the Plumas National Forest. Despite the rain and cold temperatures that mother nature threw at us, 45 trail enthusiasts showed up to contribute 270 volunteer labor hours to area trails.

In the Lakes Basin the morning started off in typical fashion with bagels, sandwich fixins and a safety talk. Then the Plumas Forest surprised the group by presenting Ron Heard with a national award for his volunteer work in the Plumas National Forest. Nice work Ronnie!

After everyone signed in and packed their lunch, we split into teams and got to work on Smith Lake, Bear Lakes and Mt. Elwell trails. On Smith Lake Trail we cut back the brush that had grown into the trail, cleared the trail of deadfall and debris, and installed drains. On Bear Lakes we repaired a culvert that had been damaged from the heavy spring rains and installed a Trail Adoption sign, announcing Hangtown Electric as the trails sponsor. On Mt. Elwell we finished a sectional reroute and decommissioned the original tread, which was excessively steep and heavily eroded.

In the Tahoe National Forest, we constructed more than 1,000 feet of new trail on Craycroft Ridge. This is part of a grade reduction project we have been funded for through the Sierra County Resource Advisory Committee. There is still quite a bit of work to be done to finish this reroute, but we got a good jump on it and hope to have it complete by August.

All in all it was a great volunteer work day and we were excited to have so many people show up to work in the rain.